Obama - The Musical

I'm headed to the beach for a few days, so this is the last post until Friday. Feel free to return then for more updates. I will have plenty to share.

But, in the meantime, many of you are wondering about Obama Fever over here. Well, here's an ad in a major newspaper for Obama - The Musical. I would love to see this. It could potentially be highly entertaining in a humorous way. I'm hoping that there is a new version every few months. Perhaps, Obama - The Musical: Dealing with Terroism, then Obama - The Musical: Recession or Depression, then Obama - The Musical: Healthcare Reform. You get the idea.

Kenyans love them some Obama. Hopefully a soundtrack follows. Watch this space.

More Debriefing of a Very Old Grandmother

It takes more than one person to have an opinion. -- Juju (My translation: A strong opinion can only be formed after hearing the perspectives of others.) Juju means grandmother in Kimeru. She just keeps dropping these nuggets of knowledge in the middle of stories. I can't wait until I can start doing that.

So, 1901.

My grandmother remembers 1901 as the year when she first saw a white man in the area. Later it turns out, he was actually Indian. The name they called him translates into the Wanderer because that’s just what he did, wander. Settlers have to actually settle in an area. When they saw the wanderer, they would run home and tell their parents that they saw God. Parents would sacrifice a goat each time this happened. I’m quite pleased that this practice has stopped considering how many Indians inhabit Kenya, let alone the earth. We’d probably be out of goats, and that would be a bad thing for Kenyans and my diet.

I asked my grandmother the logical follow-up question. What did she think the first time that she saw a white person. She said that she thought they were unhealthy and weak. She thought that if you just swatted them they would run away like a chicken. She actually said, “run away like a chicken.” A literal chicken. I tried this yesterday and it did not work. I just got stared at like I was crazy. But, when in Rome, right? She also thought that if you pinched a white person, his/her skin would fall off.

At least nowadays, if someone hasn’t seen a person of a different color before, they’ve at least seen them on television, a newspaper, book, or magazine. In Africa today, there are probably few places where they haven’t seen white people, and many where people rarely see white people. Largely because Jesus Christ has been almost everywhere. And where missionaries have left an area, there remain pictures of that long-haired white Jesus Christ all over churches, bibles, and matatus (the local minivan public transport system). So even though the people in an area may not know any white people first-hand, they still worship one as the son of God. What effect does this have on people? I’m almost sure that it does have one that I’ll explore in a subsequent post.

My grandmother was an early convert to Christianity. It will be interesting to hear how and why my grandmother transitioned from her initial impressions of white people to being converted by them in a relatively short period of time. Once I know (and get to a computer), so will you.

The Grandmother Continues to Amaze

My grandmother knows a lot. She knew that President Kibaki was in Mombasa for the holidays. Most of the rest of us, even those relatives who live in Nairobi, didn’t. She knew that there was a coalition government in Kenya. She advised that the Commission looking into the events that took place after the Kenyan elections earlier this year should take place outside of Kenya because a domestic Commission would be susceptible to corrupting influences. She asked why someone would fly planes into buildings in America. She said the new President of America is a Luo. Obama’s dad was a Luo from Western Kenya. (And then she asked if the white people really allowed a black person to rule them. I told her that many people of all colors voted for him to be their next leader. I also told her that people of all colors voted for him not to be their next leader. After all that she's seen in her over century of living, I can't even comprehend how she processes this recent development.)

Now let me put this into perspective. My grandmother cannot read or write. She is illiterate, as are most people that she grew up with largely because there were no schools for them to attend when they were young, at least the way we think of formal schooling today. She can’t read the paper, doesn’t have a television or a computer, and doesn’t listen to the radio. As a matter of fact, I remember when she got electricity. Before that, we would have to use kerosene lamps when it got dark. The same lamps that my parents used to do their homework. Up until relatively recently, her only option was to get information the old fashion way.

Her world is surrounded by several acres of animals, corn, tea, coffee, banana trees, orange trees, and more tea, corn and coffee. So the extent of her knowledge beyond her immediate world amazes me.


To walk to her house, which she and many of her children have had to do over the course of their lives, you would have to walk over an hour down a dirt road that runs off the tarmac road.



Ask someone what the name of the road is and they’ll laugh at you. The road doesn’t have a name. You just have to know where to turn. Walking at night, you’re basically walking in pitch black becasuse there are no street lights. Technically, there are no streets. If you’re lucky enough to be driving by car at night down one of the dirt roads, you’ll see figures passing you by sans light and wonder, “How in the hell do they find their way around?” I guess we’re all creatures of habit, and I‘m just fortunate enough to live in a place where streetlights are the habit. Or would I rather be less “fortunate” and be fortunate enough to live near my grandmother? These are life’s quandaries.

The area that my grandmother lives in is a relatively wooded area from which you have a beautiful view of Mount Kenya when it is clear outside. The area used to be densely wooded, and was frequently used by Mau Mau freedom fighters to hide from the British during the fight for Kenyan independence.


As you can tell from the pictures below, there isn’t much to distinguish one hill from the next rolling hill.




You get places because you know where you are going, not because of road signs or GPS navigation systems. If you get dropped off around here in the dark and think you can find your way out to a main road, I hope your first name is Bear and you host Man vs. Wild. Otherwise, best of luck to you.

I’ve grown up in the States with a concept of the middle of nowhere. Yet, in all my travels across six continents, I’ve never been anywhere inhabited by people more in the middle of nowhere than this place. But for some time, it hasn’t been nowhere. It's somewhere. It's my roots. Over the years I have become intimately familiar with various shortcuts around these dirt roads. But drop me off in the dark on one these roads, and I’d never find my way out without assistance. To think that my parents made it out of this nowhere to the States is pretty mind-boggling each time I come back. I often feel like if I had grown up in their shoes in the 1940s and 50s, I would have been a huge success if I had just heard of this America place. Stories just don’t do their journey justice. You’ve got to see where it started to fully appreciate it.

As we pulled on to my grandmother’s land, the place looked deserted. Our visits are typically unannounced to avoid unwanted guests who may show up to get Christmas. Christmas is what a guy asked for this afternoon, and what he meant was "some money". “Can I have some Christmas?” You are destined to encounter a few people who tangentially know somone you know who will ask for something like Christmas because in their eyes, you made it to America. It’s a strange feeling to be stared at celebrity-style when all that I’ve done is be born in the States, which may arguably be fortunate, but certainly is not a testament to any particular skill that I have. By now, however, I'm oddly accustomed to the looks from the numerous times I've been back to Kenya. I know ... I keep getting sidetracked.

We parked and saw my uncle standing on the cusp of the corn field. He came out said hello. Then we saw my aunt who emerged from the kitchen. (Here's a picture of my grandmother's kitchen just so you know where my aunt emerged from.)



So where’s my grandmother? Shouldn’t this dear old lady be crumpled up on a bed being spoon fed and reminded about the good old days? Not a chance. She's in the coffee fields working. I mean you just can’t script this stuff.

We found my grandmother in the coffee field supervising workers picking coffee.


(She's the one on the right with the walking stick)

Here’s a woman who is at least 106 years old (see the 1901 comment below -- I now suspect that she might be older), outside instructing people what to do, how much they can expect to get paid, and then staying outside to supervise. She was sitting on the ground on an empty coffee sack with her walking stick laying next to her. We walked up to her and greeted her in Kimeru. Her face lit up. It’s rare that my presence makes an old person happy. But it also could have been my parents’ or my brother’s presence. I’m thinking it was probably the cumulative effect. Anyway, I hope that our random surprises don't cause her heart problems in the future. I’d feel pretty guilty about that.

She reached for my hand. I helped her up, handed her the walking stick and off she went unassisted to tell the workers that she would be back. Then, back to the house with us in tow.

We sat down for a few minutes in her living room. Suddenly, she grabbed her walking stick, reached for a hand to help her up, and then shuffled out of the house. After about five minutes, I started wondering where she disappeared to and scurried out of the door to go look for her. I didn’t have to go far. My grandmother was seated on a stool with about ten to twelve women sprawled out around the compound holding court. She was effectively laying down the law and distributing money. At least that's what my cousin told me. I don't know if I've mentioned this, and I don't feel like going back to check, but I don’t understand a word my grandmother says. Well, actually, I probably understand one out of about every ten words she says. She only speaks Kimeru, her local dialect. And in typical American fashion, I'm fully fluent in English, and losing what competence I had in French very quickly. So we use whoever is around and hand gestures to communicate.

So my cousin tells me that our grandmother is closing by telling the women when she expects them back, and then she heads back to me and we head indoors for her to retake her seat in the living room.

She amazes me more and more every time I see her. I’ve never seen a person so old, yet so full of life, mobile, and with a sharp memory. I can barely remember things from ten years ago, and here she is telling stories about 1901. Seriously. 1901. I'll get to that next time.

My Grandmother on Birthdays

In an earlier post, I alluded to my grandmother being old, but not knowing how old she is. The other day, she said something to the effect that there’s no reason that one needs to mark down their date of birth. According to her, at birth you have not done anything yet, so there’s not much for you to remember. In other words, a day worth marking down is the day that you contribute something. The woman is deep.

The whole grandmother-not-knowing-her-birthday thing actually explains a lot about my perspective on birthdays. In short, I don’t care for them. Never have, probably never will. I’ve pretended in the past to care, but I was just pretending. And this goes for my birthday as well as other people’s special days. My sentiments are not out of spite or a feeling that birthdays are somehow oppressive, although they can be oppressive on the pocket. My sentiments are simple. My grandmother and people of her generation did not know their birthdays. Therefore, they didn’t celebrate birthdays. My parents both know when they were born because identification cards had been introduced. But growing up with parents who didn’t have birthdays and didn’t celebrate them, they didn’t grow up thinking that their birthdays were that big of a deal. [As a side note, I’d like to do some research into whether Africans began celebrating birthdays upon conversion because they began to celebrate the birthday of Jesus, because of some marketing campaign, or for some other reason.]

Most traditions get passed down generation to generation. For instance, if your parents or, perhaps more importantly, your community didn’t pay any attention to birthdays, Valentines Day, or Halloween, most likely neither would you. Birthdays not being a huge deal was the tradition passed down to me. I do, however, remember a few makeshift celebrations when I was younger. I recall my parents half-heartedly buying me a cake to take to school just because that’s what they saw other people doing. They didn't want to completely buy in to the craze, but they didn't want me to feel left out either. But as soon as I grew old enough (around age 9) and they could tell that I wasn’t going to be seriously damaged for them not worshiping me on my birthday, the half-ass birthdays ceased. Coming to the States is a difficult thing for parents who weren’t already indoctrinated into Western ways. For them, I’m sure that the obsessive birthday culture was a bit odd.

To this day, I have a hard time telling people when it’s my birthday. Largely because, I don’t really care all that much. And no, I’m not just saying that. I love a good hang-out, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be on my birthday. It just turns out that friends who care about you will only turn up en mass if you tell some them that the gathering is in celebration of the day you were born.

I hope this doesn’t come across as me passing judgment on those who emphatically celebrate birthdays, because I’m not. It’s more of just me providing some color to explain my stance of birthdays. A few years ago, I though that my perspective on birthdays was just that, my perspective -- something that I created. After thinking through the history of birthdays throughout generations of my family, it’s clear that that my belief is something that was passed down. What other thoughts do I have that I think are mine, but are actually passed down by my grandmother and those who came before her?

Specializing in American and Korean Hair

Focus on the bottom of the sign. Maybe I’m in the minority, but someone needs to explain to me what American hair is.

I confess that I have no idea despite living in America (although only the North part of the Americas) for most of my life. I wonder if I have American hair. For some reason, I don’t think my hair is what Apen Enterprises Limited has in mind.

At some point, I’ll probably walk in and ask them to do something special with my American hair. Then just sit there uncomfortably until they tell me that my hair isn’t American. I’ll show them my passport, say I’m American, and request a definition of American hair. Awkward, I know. Kind of like when I was in law school and used to walk into the $25 per month all-you-can-tan place and just start asking questions about different options, the tanning booths, sprays, creams, etc. I did this several times. Each time, the person at the desk looked like they wanted to laugh since I‘m quite dark as it is, but couldn’t just in case I was seriously considering tanning. I’d keep a straight face the entire time while asking questions like, “Can I use accelerator in the tanning beds?” These are the types of things I enjoy doing.

It’s also kind of interesting that Apen specializes in Korean hair. I wasn’t aware that Korean hair was that unique. But then again, I’m the same guy who doesn’t know what American hair is. I wonder if Korean-Americans get especially good haircuts at Apen Enterprises Limited.

The crazy thing is that someone went to a design company and had this sign made. I imagine the conversation went something like this:

“Ok, you’ve listed treatment, curl-kit, plaits, weaving, perm, blowdry, and haircut. You’ve got a little more space on the sign. Do you specialize in any types of hair?”

“American and Korean hair.”

So random. There’s got to be a back story to this. It can’t really be that random of a selection.

I want to ask them so many questions. Do you specialize in giving haircuts to Americans and Koreans? Or do you specialize in giving American and Korean haircuts to anyone who wants them? Can I get a Korean haircut? Would it be a North or South Korean haircut? Is there a difference? Next time I need a haircut, I’ll go there and see what happens when I ask for a Korean haircut. If anything happens, I’ll be sure to take a picture of it and share it with you.

Change That I Have No Choice But to Believe In

My new exercise is to keep remembering that things can change. This really should not be that difficult of an exercise, especially considering I just voted for change last month and saw that it can really happen. But so many areas, so many people, need more drastic change. They need more than just talk about change. They need change to be implemented. And they need it yesterday.

Working for change is difficult primarily because it is difficult to see change in real time. Change takes time. But things do change. Just think of the past one hundred years. Superpowers have come and gone. The Cold War came and went. Women gained the right to vote in the United States and elsewhere. Women became heads of state around the world. Television was invented. Al Gore invented the internet and introduced us to gratuitous PDA in politics. The atomic bomb was invented. The atomic bomb was used. Nazi Germany came and went, as did East and West Germany. Israel was created. So was Hezbollah. The plane was invented. TWA went under. William Shatner went from the final frontier to Priceline. It‘s pretty neat that he‘s still involved in travel. Colonialism (but not neo-colonialism) ended in Africa. New states were born. Man went into space. Woman went into space. A Great Depression started and ended. A new depression began. Cars were invented. American cars were the coolest. American cars ceased being cool. Americans are playing soccer professionally in Europe. It’s fashionable to live in Brooklyn. You can find falafel anywhere. Forty plus years ago, the civil rights movement challenged America. A month ago, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States. I could go on.

All of this happened within the past one hundred years. So yes, things can and do change drastically in a relatively short period of time.

My new exercise is necessary because during my short life, so many things in Kenya, and all over Africa, have not changed on the surface. My measure of change isn’t whether people are better off today than they were twenty or thirty years ago (which is sadly debatable in many places). My measure of change is how people’s standard of living today compares with society’s progress. Unfortunately, in many ways, society is Usain Bolt to the people‘s whoever-that-guy-was-who-came-in-second-in-the-100 meters-at-the Olympics. Usain is pulling away, and soon people forget who that other guy was. As technology develops, and the standard of living for those who have improve exponentially, masses of people are being left further and further behind. I think an appropriate motto for what we need to do is: “Mind the Gap.” The number of people who fall victim to “the gap” in England pales in comparison to those who fall victim to the standard of living gap. If the standard of living gap continues to grow, it will manifest itself in some pretty ugly ways in the future, especially in Africa. That much is clear.

Faced with these challenges, it is not difficult to imagine how people can fixate on stagnation in their communities. The people’s “representatives” are as corrupt as ever. The rich just keep getting richer, and the slums keep growing. Regardless of what the latest studies might say about people incrementally doing better or worse, people are as disgruntled as ever. Studies often obscure the people’s reality on the ground. All people crave is a government that works for them, but unfortunately, they have no idea what that looks or feels like. Their representatives are more interested in representing their pockets than the people. And that’s probably the biggest failure across the continent. For example, Mugabe keeps blaming the imperialists, but basically everyone knows that he’s the problem. Zimbabwe, the former bread basket of Africa, is now just an empty basket full of tired Mugabe rants. And people can’t eat those speeches, even though there are tons of them. Yet, he remains in power. That’s the problem.

Amidst these sentiments, my new exercise is of increasing importance. I need to retain a long term vision that things can, and will, fundamentally change. Not just for one man or woman, because that’s always been possible, but for masses of people. Otherwise, I could easily find myself dwelling in negativity, and that’s a waste of time and energy that could be used productively. And at the end of the day, time and energy is really all we have.

Newsflash -- My Grandmother is Old

After consulting with my cousins last night, the almost consensus is that my grandmother on my dad's side is about 106 years old! It can't be verified because people her age in Kenya don't have birth certificates, so you have to reverse engineer age based on the age of her children and events that she remembers. Her memory is very sharp and she's mobile. So much for Atkins and health clubs and blah, blah, blah. I think I might try out the Rural Kenya Plan for a few weeks to see if I can pick up some tips.

I'm planning on debriefing her in the coming weeks. I mean, what was it like during the first couple of decades of the 20th century in rural Kenya? I certainly don't know the answer to that question, but I'm apparently closely related to someone who does. More on this later.

Opportunity Knocks, No One Answers

My six-year old niece and three-year old nephew moved to Nairobi from the States in July. They were both here once before with their parents. I was one during my first trip to Kenya. The bar scene has really changed since then. I digress. Anyway, they were just like me. They were born in the States, spoke English like an American, and had lived their entire, although short, lives stateside.

Two days ago, I got a chance to see my nephew approximately six months post-move. I wondered how he was transitioning. I wondered if his Swahili would already put mine to shame, which admittedly wouldn’t be difficult. I wondered if he misses the States. My re-introduction to my nephew was beyond anything I could have imagined.

Six months ago, I was playing with a boy who sounded like me, who spoke English like me. Two days ago, I met a little Kenyan boy who was fluent in English, who is apparently that same child. That’s right, my nephew speaks English now like he’s Kenyan. He speaks English with a Kenyan accent. By speaking to him, you would never guess that he was born and lived his entire three years in the States. In fact, you might just think that this three-year old Kenyan boy is über-intelligent and has an amazing command of English as a second language and just might be one of those special kids who enrolls in college at the age of seven, or starts a company at the age of eleven. But you would be mistaken, at least on the language front. He doesn’t speak any local languages (although he can count to ten in Swahili). He just speaks English like he’s Kenyan. I know it makes sense that he would, but I was baffled. I still am.

Children absorb information like a sponge and can experience astounding mental growth when presented with the right opportunities. Which brings me to yesterday’s experience. I spent yesterday with my cousin in a slum called Kiambiu outside of Nairobi. My cousin works with Rapha Transformation Center (RTC), a new NGO that is working to provide support to people facing extreme hardships in Kiambiu. Kiambiu has approximately two hundred-fifty thousand residents crammed into an area that you could drive through in less than two minutes -- that is, if the roads were paved and the narrow streets were not crowded with chickens and little kids playing.

RTC has only two full time employees. They spend most of their time trying to find those in extreme need. The families and children we visited obviously have had few opportunities to absorb anything meaningful. Their lives are a constant struggle largely because of the circumstances into which they were born. Re-meeting my nephew within twenty-four hours of visiting Kiambiu really put this into perspective for me. Opportunity is everything.

The first person we visited was a young man in a wheel chair. He was caught in the middle of a gang fight in Kiambiu and was hit by a stray bullet in the side. He was one of those innocent bystanders who ended up very unlucky. He ended up paralyzed from the waist down. He has a wife, a thirteen year old boy, and a ten year old girl. The wife is now the sole bread winner in the family. If she gets sick, there is no one to pay school fees or buy food. She tries to make a living by offering services to other people throughout Kiambiu. She does anything from washing people’s clothes to painting people’s houses -- whatever she can to make some money. Their family has gone from having very little to having even less.

The husband has feeling every now and then in his legs, which means that there is some hope that he may regain use of his legs. The doctors initially gave him a choice. He could have surgery, or get pain medicine. He chose pain medicine because he didn’t have enough money to pay for surgery. Eventually, he ran out of money for the pain medicine too. He now goes without any treatment.

On top of all this, the family has to come up with rent money for a room in the picture below.



The room is only one room and the walls are made of mud and cow dung. It’s the same type of one room dwelling that my father and mother lived in with their families growing up in rural Kenya. My dad has eight brothers and sisters, and my mom has six. But that was in rural Kenya in the 1940s and 50s. These conditions are in 2008 in what could be considered the Nairobi metropolitan area. These conditions exist throughout the country and throughout the continent. Given these circumstances, the odds are stacked against a child wanting to escape this cycle of poverty.


Hope (pictured above with one of the women from RTC) is the daughter of a young woman in Kiambiu. Hope's mom was diagnosed with TB and HIV a few months ago. Hope is two, and she has a fifteen year old older sister. We asked her mom about her greatest challenges in life. She said one word. Food. Her older daughter lives with her sister. Her sister pays her daughter twenty Kenyan Shillings per day for her chores. That’s enough to maybe buy half a loaf of bread in a slum.

In between Hope's mom's tears, she told us about her dreams to start a business just so that she could provide for her daughters. She is unsure whether her two year old is HIV positive yet. She often has to choose between buying kerosene for her room, or buying food. She is desperate while her child is clueless. What is her solution? If she dies, what becomes of Hope? Does she have to die? Does Hope have a chance?

How can we value technological advancement so much, yet ignore the millions of Hopes, and million of people like Hope's mother, who are struggling just to continue living and to keep their children alive? I think the answer is pretty simple -- we can ignore these people because they are invisible to professionals who go from home to work and back every day. Because it’s easy to ignore the invisible.

So what’s the solution? Perhaps a first step is a pretty simple one. To make the invisible visible. Below are some pictures from Kiambiu.






I apologize if I sound like a late night commercial with Sally Struthers today, but I’m just explaining what I saw. My nephew has a shot. I had a shot. But so many of these kids, quite frankly, don’t. As long as people ignore these events, birth will continue to dictate who gets opportunities to move forward and who dies without a chance at life. Imagining a world where everyone has the same opportunities is unrealistic. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make more opportunity available to those who so desperately need it.

Black Santa

So I’m in the mall in Nairobi, and it’s hot, and it’s Christmas time. I’m not used to hot Christmas. Inside the mall, there’s a Santa Claus sitting in a chair taking pictures with little children. Pretty standard practice for Santas at malls during the holidays. But, at least for me, that’s where the ordinary stopped. Santa was black (and presumably African), which is cool, just not something I would commonly see in the States. Then, this Muslim woman goes on stage so that the kids can take a picture with Santa. So there’s black Santa, two Muslim boys, and a Muslim woman wearing a burkha. Oh Kenya, how I enjoy thee. I wish I had a camera. That should either be the poster for religious tolerance/acceptance or confusion. I hope and suspect that it’s the former, but who knows these days.

Feeling Like Home

About a week ago, I was talking to my cousin in Boston and found out that we were going to be on the same flight to Nairobi. Fantastic. I'm not one of those travelers who spends weeks meticulously preparing to travel. I started packing two and a half hours before I left for the airport. That should give you a sense of my stress-free approach to travel. My philosophy is simple. There are only a few things that you really need: a passport, prescriptions, and some money. All else can be purchased if you forget it.

So after finding out that my cousin was on my flight, I immediately began neglecting details that a normal person might think are of vital importance, especially when traveling overseas. I had no idea who was going to pick me up at the airport. I wasn't even positive that someone was going to, but I assumed. And I also knew that, worst case scenario, I'll sleep at my cousin's place.

But let me continue with the list of other things I neglected. I didn't know where I was supposed to go. A hotel, someone's house, back home? I didn't bother getting any Kenyan money. In short, I packed my bags in DC and got on a plane, almost as nonchalantly as if I was catching the metro to work.

I'm keenly aware that this approach to travel isn't for everyone. I just know that these things don't freak me out (Disclaimer: especially in this situation when I could rely on someone else as a worst case scenario). Let's say my cousin missed the flight. I know that there are hotels in Nairobi, and that I can get to them. I also know that I'd be able to get in touch with someone if I needed to. That is, assuming I had money to make a call, could find the right numbers to call, and that the recipients of those calls would feel like answering a call from a random number.

You may ask, "Why go through this when you could just verify things before leaving?" And you'd be absolutely correct. I have no answer. I just don't find the situation that stressful even though I'd probably agree that I'm just being irrational. As a side note, I certainly wouldn't travel this way if I was traveling with others, unless of course they had the same sort of traveling style.

So, back to the story. My cousin and I exit customs and walk out into a sea of brown people. Hmm, this may be more difficult than I imagined. Almost immediately, we see my cousin's cousin, who for all intents and purposes is also my cousin. He asks, "Who is coming to get you?"

I laugh. "That's a great question. And I have no idea." He laughs and without skipping a beat says, "You're home. There will always be somewhere for you to go. I've got a car."

I'm not sure that I would have been able to articulate why I was so comfortable coming back to Nairobi with so little information. No who, no what, no where. But my cousin summed it up perfectly. I was operating on blind faith. I knew that I was home, and that you can never really be lost at home.

I decided to go for a walk through the sea to see if I recognized anyone. My parents arrived in Nairobi a week ago. I was pretty confident that they weren't there, but my sense was that other cousins would be involved. I did a lap around the people, and then walked across the face of the crowd as they stared at the baggage claim doors for their people. Recognition level: zero. Looks like someone had all the symptoms of someone being lost at home.

My cousin who came to pick up my other cousin says, "I think I know where you may be going," and starts to make a call. I'm still scanning the crowd when I see two familiar faces. Two of my cousins, one from my mom's side, and one from my dad's side. There we go. Just like I planned.

Greetings are exchanged. One of the cousins who came to get me asked me who the other guy on the plane was. I tell her that he’s her cousin who lives in Boston. His mom is her dad’s, and my dad’s, oldest sister. “Oh!” she whispers, “He looks like one of us.” One of us. I like the sound of that. I’m glad that one of you came to get me.

And that’s the thing. This could only happen to me here. Perhaps it wasn’t so blind of me to assume that there will always be someone in Kenya looking out for me. Perhaps my actions were an expression, although certainly a subconscious one, that I understand how my family in Kenya operates -- that there is no way that I would be alone here. In a sense, that is why I can also comfortably call Kenya home even though I’ve never lived here and speak Swahili about as well as a one-year old Kenyan baby, but with a deeper voice.

A question that comes to mind is whether I would behave in this fashion if traveling elsewhere. And I’ve put some thought into this. Knowing myself, probably. Although I probably would have been slightly less confident (or moronic) in doing so. But in my non-professional opinion, a hint of confidence while traveling can be enough to keep the predators away. And the confidence I felt coming back to Kenya would have definitely made me seem like a credible local … at least for 10 minutes or until my third lap wandering aimlessly around the airport.

You may think I’m attempting to cloak my utter neglect to prepare for this trip as heightened cultural awareness. And I suppose I could have just made a few calls before getting on the plane. But seriously, how good of a story would that make? I had a plan that was rooted in a cultural understanding. My utter neglect was a result of my cultural awareness, which, at least in my deranged, rationalizing mind, doesn’t make my neglect that neglectful. My plan was not to have a plan, and if that fell apart, to develop a plan. Think about that. Genius, I know. I love it when a plan comes together. Stay tuned.